


On Song

by notevenjokingfic



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:07:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26739334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notevenjokingfic/pseuds/notevenjokingfic
Summary: Much of my writing is inspired by music. At times, lyrics paint an entire story in my head, so I thought I’d experiment with that.  My intention is to keep the actual lyrics in bold , while building the story around it in normal text.Best read while listening to the song.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





	1. Volume One (Angela by The Lumineers)

She arrived at school on the first day, all arms and limbs, and large lensed glasses. Wildly curly hair. She was alone, and lonely.

He’d never been lonely. Hadn’t experienced loneliness. 

Until she left. 

His soul echoed with the loss of her then. 

He was drawn to her in his youth, wanted her, but not in that way, not at first, just as a friend. And the more she kept to herself, the more he wished for her. 

It was a small town, so the grades were combined, the school small. Everyone knew everyone. He was related to half the class, the rest were friends from childhood.

But no one really knew her. 

She was different. New. English and exotic.

She was older than he was. Intelligent. Witty. Beautiful. But she was also abrupt, and sharp-tongued. 

You could see her dreams swirling in those amber eyes. Dreams of far away places, of new adventures. 

Adventures he refused to acknowledge, knowing they would take her away from him.

Slowly, but surely, they became friends. It started with hello, then small talk. Finally, conversations. He invited her places, to do things with him and his friends. Or just the two of them. 

He always knew she wouldn’t stay. That he wouldn’t be able to tame her. She wanted more. Nurse. Doctor. An education away from here. 

They sit across from each other in the diner at the edge of Broch Morda. She is quiet. Broken. Defeated. 

His palms are damp, his stomach tight, his leg is bouncing under the table with repressed feelings. He is excited, and wary. Worried, but elated. 

When she called him an hour ago, with the loneliness still in her voice, a solitary sound he’d tried so hard to erase, it gripped his heart with a pain he’d long tamped down. He wasn’t enough in their youth to keep her. Hearing her voice now, years later, brought to the surface the waves of desire to be something for her again. This time something more, something permanent, an anchor for the raging storm that washed her from the shores of this simple life, the simple life he loved. 

The coffee cup on the saucer spins round and round in her nervous hands. 

He clears his throat. Tries to put into words, to show her that he

 _knows_ her, he

 _understands_ her, he

 _gets_ her. 

He starts at the beginning. 

**“When you left this town, with your windows down a** **nd the wilderness inside.** **L** **et the exits pass, all the tar and glass,** **‘til the road and sky align.** **The strangers in this town, t** **hey raise you up just to cut you down. Oh,** Claire **. It’s a long time coming.”**

She smiles sadly, knowing it’s true. It was a long time coming. She owed him an explanation of why she ran away, windows down, her anger and sadness flowing past the glass, out into the trees, along the highway, buried in the landscape around her. She ran. Ran for freedom, to be someone else, someone away from Broch Morda. 

People talked about her younger self, said she was snooty, a bitch, rude. She was none of those things. She was cautious, shy, awkward. They didn’t bother to get to know her, so they interpreted her the way they wanted. 

Except for him. 

She raises her amber eyes to meet his, sky blue and cloudless. He was always an open book to her. 

He hasn’t touched his coffee. The cup sits in front of him, ripples across the liquid from the movement of his leg under the table. It was his habit when he was nervous, one he obviously still has. 

She listens to him as he continues to speak, his deep Scottish burr caressing her ears, vibrating through her chest, seeping into her heart making it warm, then warmer still. 

**“And your Volvo lights lit up green and white with the cities on the signs.** **But you held your course to some distant war in the corners of your mind.”**

It’s as if he were in the car with her, watching the exits pass, no discernable destination in mind, just fleeing, running, searching for peace, to finally be what she knew she could be. 

“I didn’t fit here, Jamie, you know that.”

“Ye did. Ye fit wi’ me.” His voice is low, and shaky.

_He wants to let the next words fall from his lips with abandon, wants to spill them onto the table in front of her for her to consume. His feelings are unchanged, unwavering. With Claire in front of him his heart reasserts itself. It’s only through sheer willpower he doesn’t say what he wants, he doesn’t say ‘ **from the second time around, the only love I ever found.’** _

_**Oh,** Claire, he thinks, **it’s a long time coming.**_

He stays quiet. He wonders why she is here, if she has truly come home.

 **Home at last.**

They sit silently. Claire sips lukewarm coffee, Jamie’s is still untouched.

She sees a lone car in the distance, the headlights cutting through the darkness navigating the curves in the road out of this tiny village. The glare sways through the night and she is transported back, back in her car, barreling out of town, demons nipping at her heels, her heart hurting, tears tracking down her face, determination keeping her foot pinned to the gas pedal. 

He breaks the silence once again, his voice rough. His questions come, as if he’s read her mind, as if the car has sparked the same memory. 

**“Were you safe and warm in your coat of arms with your fingers in a fist?** **Did you hear the notes, all those static codes in the radio abyss?”**

She knows what he’s asking. He knows her too well. Knows how frustrated she felt. Was it worth it? Was it any easier out there than it was here? Was it easier without him, without his protection, his affection? 

But it wasn’t easy. It was difficult. And, at times, unfriendly. 

**“The strangers in this town, they raise you up just to cut you down.”**

He shakes his head in regret at the one thing he couldn’t fix for her.

 **“Oh,** Claire.” he says again, wistfully. **“It’s a long time coming.”**

He stares at her for a full minute. **“Spent your whole life running.”**

“I did run. I did.” She ran from judgement, from bullying, from isolation. But she ran from him, too, from his warmth, his commitment, his kindness. She ran from the vulnerability he exposed in her. She ran from the promises that Jamie offered. 

**“Home at last?”** he asks, undisguised hope in his eyes. 

**“Home at last,”** she replies, meaning it. 

**Vacancy, hotel room.**

The neon sign glows through the window, a dull yellow. 

They don’t bother with lights, or lamps. Their mouths are fused as they undress themselves, and each other. There is no need to stop, to savour, to wonder, to feel. They feed on each other, starving, thirsty, frantic. 

**Lost in me, lost in you.**

He whispers her name, over and over. 

**On my knees, I belong, I believe.**

Their words are pledges, their phrases vows.

They tumble onto the lumpy mattress in a flurry of kisses, and touches. Her legs part, he settles himself between her thighs. Her ankles lock behind his back, his hand slides beneath her buttock to raise her up. In one swift move he drives into her, and he’s not gentle, it’s a long time coming. 

They gasp in unison. 

**Home at last.**

His breath shudders out of him, leaves him gasping as the realization hits him that he is _in_ Claire, that she is under him, that he is holding his fantasy, his dream, in his arms, and he is making love to his Claire. 

**Home at last.**

She sighs in contentment as he fills her, and she opens her eyes to see her Jamie over her, strong and alive, to feel him in her arms, to feel him inside her as she rises up to meet him again and again, completing her body and soul. 

**“Home at last?”** he asks, his eyes boring into hers, pleading earnestly.

 **“Home at last,”** she replies, her eyes filled with promises now, promises she can keep. At last. 

**Home at last.**


	2. Volume 2 (R U Mine by Arctic Monkeys?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The actual lyrics are in bold. I tried to make this story feel as dark and desperate as the music and lyrics suggest. 
> 
> Best read while listening to the song.

The pub is dark, the music droning in the background with no discernable melody, just a driving beat that thrums in his blood, stirs his pain. 

He’s drunker than he’s been in a long time. 

A very long time.

But then, she could drive a man to drink with one look from those amber eyes. Eyes that could narrow in desire, or widen in wonder. Eyes that could pierce a man’s soul, could see your past, present and future. Eyes that could make you weak, could send you to your knees in front of her, your only thought to lift her skirt, or unzip her pants, and place your mouth at the apex of her thighs, to watch her squirm, listen to her moan, taste her as she finishes. 

“Gimme another,” he slurs but the bartender pointedly ignores him.

“Another!” he shouts, banging his half-empty glass on the bar, sloshing the dark liquid over the sides and onto his fingers. 

“Listen, mate. Ye’ve had enough, aye?” The bartender is young, tired, over it.

 **“I’m a puppet on a string,”** he mumbles. 

The pub owner ambles over, places a hand on his employee’s shoulder. “Let me deal wi’ this one.”

**“Tracy island. Time-traveling diamond. Coulda shaped heartaches.”**

“What the fuck is he on about?” he asks. “Tracy Island?” 

“Old television show. Dinna fash,” he says. 

He walks from behind the bar to his patron’s side. “Come on, Lad. Let’s get you a ride home, yeah?” 

The bartender reaches for his half empty glass but he grabs onto it, surprisingly fast for a man who’s three sheets to the wind, drains it in one swallow.

 **“Come to find ya,”** he mutters. “Up on the Dun. **Fall in some velvet morning, years too late.”**

The bartender sighs in exasperation. He motions over one of the security guys for help. 

“Aye, man, sometimes it’s years too late.” He’s learned it’s easier to play this particular drunk’s game than to argue. To security he says, “Help me get him out, aye?”

“Come on, man.” Security tries to rouse the guy to his feet, but he’s heavy, legless, too far gone to walk or stand by himself. 

**“She’s a silver lining. Lone ranger riding through an open space.”**

The men chuckle at his poetic sadness. 

They don’t understand, will never understand. He barely understands it himself, where she’s been, what she’s done. 

**“In my mind, when she’s not right there beside me, I go crazy, ‘cause here isn’t where I wanna be. And satisfaction feels like a distant memory. And I can’t help myself. All I wanna hear her say is, are you mine?”**

He grabs the lapels of the security guy’s jacket, sways on the stool. **“** Well? **Are you mine?”**

His breath is strong, yeasty like the pints of dark beer he’s consumed, and right in his face, making the bouncer turn his head in disgust. 

**“Are you mine?”** the drunk asks again. **“Are you mine?”** Louder this time.

“Nope, not yers.” He turns to the pub owner. “I fuckin’ hate sad drunks.”

The older man laughs, and together, they finally wrestle him off the stool and toward the door, one with an arm around his middle, the other holding the sloshed patron’s arm around his neck so he doesn’t slip down to the floor.   
He’s struggling to keep his feet under him, to walk at all. His feet keep getting tangled up, his knees buckle under him. 

They get him out the door into the cool of the night, and pour the sad sack into a taxi, somehow get an address out of him. The driver refuses to move until he gets paid up front. 

Security pats him down, finds his wallet and hands over some cash.

“Don’t be a wanker, now. Get him home safe,” the bouncer says. 

The taxi takes off and the streetlights slide past in the darkness, slashing the inside of the cab, long stabbing strips of light that cut across his lap, he wishes they could bleed him, end him, end the heartache, the pain.

“You married?” he asks the driver.

“Yeah.” 

“She’s something, my wife. Kept me on my toes but then I lost her. I lost her. Life’s too shallow now. **I guess what I’m trying to say is, I need the deep end.** I need the rush of her, you know? **Keep imagining meeting,”** His voice breaks a little, as he talks and the driver misses what he says but hears “… **wished away entire lifetimes.”**

He talks all the way to the address, nonsense and ramblings that mean nothing to cabbie. As long as he’s talking he’s not puking, and that’s all he cares about. No one wants a taxi full of vomit. He does finally feel a twinge of sympathy for how much the guy is hung up on that woman. 

**“Unfair we’re not somewhere misbehaving for days. Great escape,”** the man laughs to himself. “Sometimes I worry that she forgets us. **Lost track of time, and space. She’s a silver lining, climbing on my desire.”**

“Come on, buddy,” the cabbie says. “Pull yerself together. No woman is worth it.”

“This one is,” he says, the emotion evident, and then he falls silent for a moment. 

He starts up again, his voice cracking, like he’s trying not to cry.

**“And I go crazy, 'cause here isn’t where I wanna be. And satisfaction feels like a distant memory. And I can’t help myself. All I wanna hear her say is, are you mine?”**

He looks in the rearview mirror at his passenger. The man is looking out the window, wistful, sad, nose running, tears falling. 

**“Are you mine?”** he’s mumbling, over and over. **“Are you mine? Are you mine?”**

They get to the address, the taxi driver trying to coax the guy out of his cab. He finally succeeds, leaves the sad fucker on the sidewalk. He peels away with a squeal of his tires, grateful he’s dumped him before he got sick all over his car. 

The house looms before him, dark and silent. He staggers up the stairs, stumbles towards the front door, tries the handle but it’s locked. He presses his hand flat against the bell, can hear it echoing inside the house, over and over, relentless, just like his feelings for her. 

He can’t let her go. He won’t. Fuck the distance between them, the mistakes made, the uncontrollable past. 

He will get her back. He will win her. **“And the thrill of the chase moves in mysterious ways,”** he says out loud to the solidly shut door in front of him. 

The bell continues, persistent. He can’t lift his hand, he’s too drunk to move. 

It finally opens with a jerk, and she’s right there in front of him. Eyes sleepy, the dark hair riotous, the curls framing her face, and it reminds him of what she looks like right after sex, all soft and messy. 

“You’re drunk,” she says, angry. “Again.”

He stumbles through the door, tries to hug her, but she sidesteps him deftly, and he trips. 

“Where is he?” he asks, looking up the stairwell, searching the hallway. 

“Stop it,” she says, shutting the door, turning the lock. 

“WHERE IS HE?” he screams, spittle flying from his lips, his teeth bared in rage, his face red from drink and anger.

“There. Is. No. One. Here.” She enunciates each word as she stares him down.

**“So in case I’m mistaken-“**

“You are,” she says, heading up the stairs.

**“I just wanna hear you say you got me, baby. Are you mine?”**

She refuses to answer, denies him what he wants, which is her subjugation. 

**“She’s a silver lining, lone ranger riding through an open space.”**

_God_ , she thinks, _I will not listen to this again._ She continues up the stairs, to her room, alone, and he hears the door close with a firmness. 

He sees him then, that ghost that lives between them, standing at the top of the stairs, his red hair catching the hall light.

He tries to follow her, climbing, stumbling. 

“You bastard,” he whispers. “You’ve no claim to her. She’s mine.”

The ghost doesn’t move, just stands there, tall and imposing, mocking him.

The same thoughts wind through his mind, thoughts he’s had a thousand times.  
 ** _In my mind when she’s not right there beside me, I go crazy cause here isn’t where I wanna be._**

He’s halfway up, and the bastard hasn’t moved.

**_And satisfaction feels like a distant memory, and I can’t help myself. All I wanna hear her say is are you mine?_ **

He reaches the top of the stairs and the ghost is now outside her bedroom. He strides down the corridor, bouncing off the walls, staggering, his mind fuzzy.

He starts to shout for her, and bang on the barrier that stands between them.

“Answer me! **Well? Are you mine? Are you mine tomorrow? Are you mine? Or just mine tonight?”**

To his surprise the door flies open, and she’s wild with anger. Her eyes flash like lightning, and he rears back to escape it.

“No, Frank. Now stop it.”

And before the door shuts he sees the ghost again, in her bed, his chest bare, hands behind his head, his red hair stark against the white pillowcase. His smile is smug.

And she is his. 


	3. Volume 3 (Wicked Game sung by Ursine Vulpine.  Written by Chris Isaak.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s my hope that you read this while the song plays in the background. It’s a haunting piece of music and I absolutely love how it makes the story two dimensional.

At first, it was a game. A game of survival. A battle of wits. 

A wicked game.

Until she had to play against an opponent who wasn’t her enemy. 

She was unwilling to deceive him.

_I reared in panic, throwing my arms around Jamie, but he set me firmly away from him, his face white, and turned me once again toward the stone.  
_

_“My lady,” he said softly. “My … Claire. It’s no use in waiting. I must part wi’ ye now.”_

The decision should have been an easy one. 

She had a _husband_. She had a _husband_ in her _own time_.

But he wasn’t anything like _this husband_ in _this time_. 

_This husband_ blindly married her to protect her from any and all dangers. Dangers like a man who wanted to kill her, a family who didn’t trust her, questions she wouldn’t answer. 

She pulled the plaid up tighter around her shoulders, tried to cover her neck from the biting wind that whipped around the granite monoliths. The smell of him rose up from the folds around her face. Warm, musky, distinct. 

She looked behind her. The memory of him heading down the hill, grasping at tree branches, staggering as if wounded, as if the weight of what he was doing was trying to collapse him, rose into her mind. It was as if the stones were sending him into the earth like a man whose life was flowing from him, bit by agonizing bit. 

The noise sounded like the hum of a million bees. It was hard to think, to concentrate. The air vibrated until it felt like her brain was going to explode into a million pieces, and her teeth were going to rattle forever. 

She closed her eyes, remembered their wedding night, remembered his promise. _“You have my name, and my family, my clan, and if necessary, the protection of my body, as well.”_

**The world was on fire and no one could save me but you.**

The thought careened around her head, unable to land, to rest in her consciousness, to make her feel settled. 

She _should_ go.

She _could_ stay.

**It’s strange what desire will make foolish people do.  
**

She wanted him. God, how she wanted him! It embarrassed her to admit it. In the beginning, she had wanted his awkward lovemaking, his eagerness. Now she wanted his body, wanted the long, lean muscles, craved the power they held as he rocked against her. She wanted the veins that bulged in his arms as he held himself above her, longed to feel the flex of hips as he thrust into her, needed the long length, the hard feel of him deep inside her. 

**I never dreamed that I’d meet somebody like you.**

**And I never dreamed that I’d lose somebody like you.**

If she went back what would she gain? 

The list was long, the litany of modern conveniences repeated themselves in her head. 

Hot baths. Indoor plumbing. Proper medical care. Convenient travel. Newspapers. Trousers. Ice cream, and oh fuck! coffee.

And if she stayed?

Peace and quiet. No traffic, no concrete, no man-made blights on the landscape.

But more than that, if she was honest. 

Love. 

It’s really all he had to offer. 

His undying love.

 **“No, I don’t wanna fall in love,”** she said, as if he were right in front of her. 

And again, louder, into the screaming wind.

**“No, I don’t wanna fall in love with you.”**

Her legs gave way and she sat hard on the ground in front of the stones, body trembling. She looked over her shoulder again, and was rewarded this time. She could see the first wisps of smoke from the fire he built in the cottage. True to his word, always. He would wait. He would stay close by. 

**What a wicked game to play, to make me feel this way.**

She searched the sky for whatever god was above. She hadn’t thought about _that husband_ in weeks. She’d only ever thought of _this husband_ , both waking and asleep.

**What a wicked thing to do, to let me dream of you.**

The image of another flashed into her mind. An impatient one, a self-centered one. One who was absorbed in his work, his hobbies, his wants and needs. One from whom she had to beg attention, both in and out of bed.

She’d never realized before, never had a way to compare him before. 

**What a wicked thing to say, you never felt this way.**

_That husband_ had his faults, but the fact remained that she was bound by vows, by law, and by love, to another man. 

Yet she made the same vow to _this husband._

But was it usual? What she felt now, in this time, in this space, with this man?

**What a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you.**

No, it wasn’t usual. It was different.

**No, I don’t wanna fall in love.**

The humming fell away. 

**No, I don’t wanna fall in love.**

Her body ceased to tremble.

**No, I don’t wanna fall in love.**

The wind quieted. 

**No, I don’t wanna fall in love …**

_I could feel his heart beating against my ribs, and wanted nothing more than to stay there forever, not moving, not making love, just breathing the same air._

It was too late. She already had. 

**with you.**


End file.
